Duxbury's Juliana Hatfield to perform at Hot Stove Cool Music

Wednesday

Jan 31, 2018 at 3:45 PMFeb 1, 2018 at 10:39 AM

By Jay N. MillerFor The Patriot Ledger

Duxbury-raised singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield has long since arrived at the point in her career where she does what she wants, wherever and however inspiration may strike. That accounts for the wide variety of her projects in recent years, and also for the range of her performance this Saturday night at the 2018 edition of the Hot Stove, Cool Music benefit concert at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston.

Appearing on the multi-act bill along with the Peter Gammons All Stars, former Red Sox hurler Bronson Arroyo, Kay Hanley, and the Boston debut of Scarborough - the rock band persona of cable news pundit Joe Scarborough, Hatfield will be splitting her set into two segments with slightly different bands. On the first she will do music from her Some Girls period, the trio she formed in the early 2000s with former Blake Babies cohort Freda Love and Heidi Gluck. The second half of her set will showcase tunes from Hatfield's forthcoming album, due in April, of her covering songs from Olivia Newton-John.

"Some Girls was a side project, where we did two albums (the last one in 2006)," Hatfield noted from her Cambridge home. "Heidi will not be able to be there, but Freda and I will have a band with us, including a woman, Megan on keyboards. Then, the second half of my set, with a slightly bigger band, will be me doing some Olivia Newton-John songs."

The Newton-John project includes songs like "I Honestly Love You," "Physical," "Hopelessly Devoted to You," and "Have You Never Been Mellow?" A portion of the proceeds from every album sale will be donated to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Center.

If an album of upbeat pop seems a bit of a departure for Hatfield, it is even more so when compared to her recent output. Last year she released her 14th solo album, "Pussycat," which was a reaction to the social and political situation, and dubbed "a protest album" by some. Songs like "When You're A Star" and "Kellyanne," with lyrics like "you make me feel like the enemy," and "I want to be the one to make you cry" or "Rhinoceros," which seemed to deal with a rape, caught some fans by surprise. The year before that, 2016, Hatfield had joined with Paul Westerberg of The Replacements in a group called the I Don't Cares, for an album "Wild Stab."

"I'm not able to conceptualize going in a particular direction, I just have ideas and follow them," Hatfield explained. "When I have ideas, I make them come to life. I keep moving and keep working. You have to keep working - you're only here a short time and you have to be open to new possibilities. The idea of doing an Olivia Newton-John record popped in my head, so I went and did it. Unconsciously, I guess it might have been a reaction against the feelings surrounding 'Pussycat,' which were disturbed and full of anger. You could see it as the pendulum swinging back. I just wanted to do something that felt good."

Earlier in her solo career Hatfield had released albums on her own label, Ye Olde Records, but the last two have been on the American Laundromat imprint, which still allows her complete autonomy about her choices.

"American Laundromat is a label I discovered through their really interesting compilations of people covering other artists' songs," said Hatfield. "They've been great, and I definitely can still do what I want to do. We have played a couple of the Olivia songs at a party at Q Division studios, which was not exactly a public event, so this will be a good way to try them out."

"I'm putting my own spin on the Olivia Newton-John songs," Hatfield added. "Although what we're doing is not radically reworking them, you have my vocals and my kinda scrappy guitar style, but they do fit in well with the melodic sense I have."

Hatfield is proud of 'Pussycat' and rather amused that some people were shocked at the content.

"I fell that I've always written protest songs," she said. "I've always protested the corrupt power elite, and things like misogyny. People maybe just didn't pick it up, because it might've been a bit hidden. But I've always been angry about things like bigotry, dishonesty, and pollution, from the very beginning. You can even look at the Blake Babies song, "Cesspool," from 1989, which is all about dumping waste into the oceans. So I feel that part of my writing has always been there, although on 'Pussycat' it was admittedly more pointed, and maybe more extreme."

Hatfield is a Hot Stove veteran and she said she likes the multi-act revue aspect of the concert, and the good-timey vibes onstage and off.

"There's a built-in enthusiasm to these shows, where everyone is there for the cause," said Hatfield. "It feels like less pressure than headlining your own concert, and all the fans are there for a good time. I feel it is a place to try out new material, because it is more of a collective type of show. And I am going to be interested to see Scarborough - it's always intriguing to see someone out of their normal context. I guess I'm not surprised he's doing it: everybody wants to be a rocker."